Their Last Stand
by poisonesse
Summary: Angsty little one-shot based on the LSODM cover. Warning: may or may not make you miserable.


**A/N: Just a little one-shot based on the LSODM cover that Derek released on Friday. I had to do something for it- I just had to. I can't scream that much about something and then **_**not **_**write about it. Contains spoilers, I guess? If you haven't read KOTW, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to read this- knowing me, I'll go and mention some spoilers and ruin everyone's reading experience. Sigh. Enjoy!**

When Skulduggery first saw her, lying limp and pale among the wreckage, he thought she was asleep. And his first thought, upon seeing her, was, _Trust Valkyrie Cain to fall asleep in the middle of the apocalypse. _And he let out a small chuckle, and he started walking towards her, and then he looked at her again, really _looked _at her, and he froze.

Her skin wasn't just pale- it was completely ashen, white and bloodless, bordering on grey. Her hair was fanned out behind her head, dark and glossy and surrounded by blood. _Her _blood. Valkyrie's blood.

She'd looked like she was sleeping. He'd thought that she was sleeping.

Desperately, his mind tried to reason with him. _This is what she always looks like when she's asleep_, it said. _Any minute now, she'll wake up and stretch and yawn and glare at you, tell you that you're an idiot just because she can, then smile and look around, and..._

But she didn't wake up. Skulduggery stared at his partner for God knows how long, but she didn't wake up, didn't even stir. Her eyes were closed, the lashes casting dark shadows against her cheeks. Slowly, he knelt down beside her, and gently, he lifted her body from the floor. And he held her, just held her, until he heard the low hissing sound escape from between his teeth.

He wasn't sure if he could cry, being the way that he was. Ever since he'd turned into a skeleton, all those years ago, he hadn't had _reason _to cry. The only thing that ever filled him was rage- not sorrow, not grief, _rage_. But now? He wasn't sure. For the first time in four hundred years, Skulduggery Pleasant felt like crying, and he wasn't sure what to make of it.

Slowly, he stood. He was still holding her, bridal-style, with one gloved hand cupping the back of her head and the other holding onto her thigh. Still, she didn't stir- there wasn't even a flutter of her eyelids, a closing of her slightly-parted lips. There was no breath to lift her chest, no blood to bring colour back to her face.

She was dead. Valkyrie Cain was dead, in his arms, and there was no way of cheating it this time, no way of bringing her back. She was dead, and that was that. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt the emotion surge through his bones, filling him until he was nothing but a walking mixture of sorrow and rage, grief and fury, of all the things he hadn't allowed himself to really _feel _in four centuries of existence.

But he kept all of it right where it was- inside him, locked safely in his mind, where it couldn't cause any harm. The time to avenge his best friend's death would come later, after she had been buried and mourned, but never forgotten. So he walked, with Valkyrie Cain's corpse in his skeletal arms, through the flames and the wreckage that she herself had created. He ignored the stares that he gathered when he reached the others- the horrified gazes of Tanith and Erskine and Ghastly and Fletcher, the weary looks from everyone who knew of his reputation, of the anger that fuelled his very existence. He ignored them all, and he just walked foward to his Bentley.

Very gently, with as much carefulness as he possessed, he laid Valkyrie in the backseat, in a way that, had she been awake, she would have been comfortable with. Then he got into the Bentley himself, and he drove. He didn't know where he was going to go, what he was going to do, but he'd save all of those complicated thoughts for later. Right now, it was time for him to mourn in his own special way- away from the prying and pitying eyes of the others, with only his partner and best friend for company. He glanced at her from the rear-view mirror, and he thought she looked peaceful. He was glad about that, comforted himself with the thought. She was at peace now, reunited with Gordon and Carol and all of the other loved ones she had lost in this war.

Yes, Skulduggery thought, and he was sure that he could feel a smile behind his otherwise impassive skull. Peace. She was peaceful in this era of war, and that was all that mattered. That was all that would ever matter.

'Goodbye, Valkyrie,' Skulduggery said aloud. He wasn't expecting a reply. He didn't get one.

**A/N: Okay, so... I'll admit, that turned out more angsty than I'd initially intended. Oops. Hope I haven't spoiled anyone's day.**


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